A short time ago this
staid city of London experienced a tempest in a teapot over Sabbath
observance. It was proposed to allow the children to use the municipal
swimming pool during the sweltering weather we were then having. Immediately
there was a ministerial chorus of protest. One reverend Boanerges valiantly
declared that they would not rest until they had routed "the hosts of
hell." Presumably he saw in apocalyptic vision the infernal armies
lined up behind His Worship the Mayor and others in their impious assault on
the sanctity of "the Sabbath."
Imagine the consternation in the ministerial association
and the jubilation amongst the hosts of hell when they read in the London
Free Press of this dastardly flank attack on their citadel of sabbatarianism:
"That Sabbath observance in the strict sense of the
law of Israel, whether on the traditional or any seventh day, is no concern
of the Christian, was the assertion of Rev. J. Marion Smith, of Emmanuel
Baptist Church, Toronto, in his evening sermon yesterday at the Talbot
Street Baptist Church."
And this under a two-column heading: "Sabbath
Observance Not Any Part of Man's Duty as a Christian!" True, Mr. Smith
was speaking to the "interogative subject," "Can a Saved Man
Be Lost?" That is quite a big subject in itself; but we shall take
first his pronouncement on the Sabbath, which evidently struck the reporter
and the city editor as the more sensational if not the more important part
of the sermon. The report of the Free Press Continues:
"Quoting St. Paul, he declares that making any point
of the old Mosaic law a test of righteousness is to accept the full burden
of the rules, rituals and customs enjoined by Moses.
" 'In Toronto, for instance', he said, 'there are
many who make a great point of Sabbath observance. I do not consider it any
part of my duty as a Christian to observe the Sabbath. When Christ came the
old law was fulfilled and done away with. Christ was the only being, as a
human, who could and did observe the whole law. Of course, as a Christian I
observe certain rules of conduct and habit. But that is the matter of
personal purity.' "
It will be noted that the last paragraph purports to
quote the very words of the preacher.
To the Toronto Star the Rev. Mr. Smith gave an
explanatory interview which, though it may tend to allay Sabbatarian
indignation, does not claim that he was misreported; indeed he further
emphasizes the fact that the Jewish Sabbath and Christian Sunday are quite
distinct and separate institutions.
We quote from The Star:
"The Jewish Sabbath is not Sunday, the Lord's Day.
Christians are all wrong in speaking of the Sabbath as Sunday." said
Mr. Smith. "The Sabbath is not binding upon a Christian as a means of
justification from sin," he went on. "The keeping of Sunday, the
Lord's day, is quite a different matter, and springs not from any obligation
to the Jewish Law, but is the ready response from the heart of the Christian
who observes Sunday as a day set aside for worship and rest. This observance
is one of the highest privileges of mankind, and it is only reasonable that
one-seventh of a man's time should be devoted to special worship and
spiritual refreshment."
And further to mollify the critics he added in
conclusion:
"One of the greatest blessings of Canada had been
due to the strict observance of the Lord's Day. To throw Sunday wide open
would be to paralyze much good that is now accomplished and to throw
unlimited temptation before the young life of our boys and girls."
The ministers of London who criticize Mr. Smith's sermon
left the real crux of the question untouched. And that is not surprising,
for on Protestant principles there is no possible explanation of the
substitution of the Christian Sunday for the Jewish Sabbath; for this plain
abrogation of the express commandment of God as recorded in the Bible.
Protestants reject Divine Tradition, the Unwritten Word,
which Catholics accept as of equal authority with the Written Word, the
Bible. The Divine authority given by Christ to the Church to teach in His
name, to bind and loose, Protestants deny. For them - and it is their boast
- the Bible and the Bible alone has Divine authority.
Now in the matter of Sabbath observance the Protestant
rule of Faith is utterly unable to explain the substitution of the Christian
Sunday for the Jewish Saturday. It has been changed. The Bible still teaches
that the Sabbath or Saturday should be kept holy. There is no authority in
the New Testament for the substitution of Sunday for Saturday. Surely it is
an important matter. It stands there in the Bible as one of the Ten
Commandments of God. There is no authority in the Bible for abrogating this
Commandment, or for transferring its observance to another day of the week.
For Catholics it is not the slightest difficulty.
"All power is given Me in heaven and on earth; as the Father sent Me so
I also send you," said our Divine Lord in giving His tremendous
commission to His Apostles. "He that heareth you heareth Me." We
have in the authoritative voice of the Church the voice of Christ Himself. The
Church is above the Bible; and this transference of Sabbath observance from
Saturday to Sunday is proof positive of that fact. Deny the
authority of the Church and you have no adequate or reasonable explanation
or justification for the substitution of Sunday for Saturday in the Third -
Protestant Fourth - Commandment of God. As the Rev. Mr. Smith rightly points
out: "The Jewish Sabbath is not Sunday, the Lord's Day. Christians are
all wrong in speaking of the Sabbath as Sunday." The Christians who so
speak are "Bible Christians," those who make the Bible the sole
rule of Faith; and the Bible is silent on Sunday observance, it speaks only
of Sabbath observance. The Lord's Day - Dies Dominica - is the term used
always in the Missal and the Breviary. It occurs in the Bible once (Apoc.
1.10;) in Acts xx. 7 and 1 Cor. xvi., 2 there is a reference to "the
first day of the week;" but in none of these is there the remotest
intimation that henceforth the first day is to take the place of the
seventh. That is the crux of the whole question, what authority does the
Bible give for the change? And that difficulty Mr. Smith and his critics,
though pious and effusive and vaguely eloquent about many things, have each
and all sedulously evaded.
If affects very materially and very intimately the
question of the proper observance of the Lord's Day.
In the first centuries the obligation of rest from work
remained somewhat indefinite. The Council of Laodicea, held at the end of
the fourth century, was content to prescribe that on the Lord's Day the
faithful were to abstain from work as far as possible. At the beginning of
the sixth century St. Cesarius and others showed an inclination - very
familiar to us - to apply the law of the Jewish Sabbath to the Christian
Sunday. But the Council of Orleans in 538 reprobated this tendency as Jewish
and non-Christian.
Thus by the same Divine authority, in virtue of which she
did away with the Jewish Sabbath and substituted therefor the Christian
Sunday, the Catholic Church legislated as to how the Lord's Day should be
observed.
Due to the exaggerated importance given the Bible after
the Reformation and to the influence of Puritanism, the Lord's Day in
England and still more in Scotland began to take on all the rigorism of the
Jewish Sabbath. That heritage, though somewhat softened, we still have with
us. A game of ball where participants and spectators enjoy health-giving
rest and recreation in the open air is "desecration of the
Sabbath." The swimming pool controversy is another good example.
We would not be misunderstood. With much of the activity
of the Sabbatarians we are in sympathy. Their insistence on a day of rest
being given all workers is admirable. But their muddle-headed confusion of
the Lord's Day with the Jewish Sabbath - against which the Rev. Mr. Smith so
vigorously protests - finds no sympathy amongst the Catholics who receive
the Lord's Day itself as well as its mode of observance from the Church and
not from the Bible.
It might serve a good purpose if the Sabbatarians would
meditate on Mark ii, 23-28.
"And it came to pass again, as the Lord walked
through the cornfields on the sabbath, that his disciples began to go
forward and pluck the ears of corn. And the Pharisees said to Him: Behold
why do they on the sabbath-day that which is not lawful?
"And He said to them: Have you never read what David
did, when he had need, and was hungry himself and they that were with them?
How he went into the house of God under Abiathar the high-priest and did eat
the loaves of proposition which was not lawful to eat but for the priests,
and gave to them who were with him?
"And He said unto them: The sabbath was made for
man, not man for the sabbath."
That is the great principle that is forgotten under the
damnosa hereditas of Puritanical sabbatarianism.
Our Divine Lord observed the Sabbath; but by word and
deed he set Himself against the absurd rigorism that made man the slave of
the day.
The train of thought and discussion set in motion by the
Rev. Mr. Smith if followed up to its logical conclusion should serve a very
good and very practical purpose.

The above article was published in the
Saturday, September 1st, 1923 edition of The Catholic Record of
London, Ontario, Canada, Volume XLV, #2342 and appeared on page 4. As the
author of the article was not indicated, it is assumed to have been written by
one of the editors. The boldfacing of the one sentence above was my own
emphasis, and not that of the author. A facsimile of that portion of the
article.The full scanned page is available on the
Sources page. The following information appeared on the same page as
the article:

The Catholic Record has been
approved and recommended by Archbishops Falconio and Sbaretti, late
Apostolic Delegates to Canada, the Archbishops of Toronto, Kingston, Ottawa,
and St. Boniface, the Bishops of London, Hamilton, Peterborough and
Odgensburg, N. Y., and the clergy throughout the Dominion.

Anyone wishing to obtain a photocopy of
the original newspaper article from microfilm archives can inquire online at
the London
Ontario Canada Public Library,or call them on the phone at
519-661-4600.

Even A Pope Said Catholic Doctrine Is Superior To
Scripture:

14. ... Catholic doctrine, as authoritatively proposed by the Church,
should be held as the supreme law; for, seeing that the same God is the
author both of the Sacred Books and of the doctrine committed to the Church,
it is clearly impossible that any teaching can by legitimate means be
extracted from the former, which shall in any respect be at variance with
the latter. Hence it follows that all interpretation is
foolish and false which either makes the sacred writers disagree one with
another, or is opposed to the doctrine of the Church.

As we know, the Sacred Scriptures are the written
testimony of the divine word, the canonical memorial that testifies to the
event of Revelation. The Word of God therefore precedes and exceeds
the Bible. This is why our faith is not only centred on a
book but on a history of salvation and above all on a Person, Jesus
Christ, the Word of God made flesh. Precisely because the horizon of the
divine word embraces and extends beyond Scripture, to understand it
adequately the constant presence of the Holy Spirit is necessary, who “will
guide you into all the truth” (Jn 16:13). We must put ourselves in
line with the great Tradition which, under the guidance of the Holy
Spirit and of the Magisterium, recognized the canonical writings as a word
which God addressed to his People and never ceased to meditate on them and
to discover their inexhaustible riches.

It follows that the exegete must be attentive to
perceiving the word of God present in the biblical texts, fitting them
into the Church's faith itself. The interpretation of the Sacred
Scriptures cannot only be an individual scientific effort. Rather, it must
always be confronted, inserted and authenticated by the living Tradition of
the Church. —
Pope Francis to the Pontifical Biblical Commission, April 12, 2013.